“They [the doctors] waited, now, for
the results of a telephone call the child’s father had just made to Edgar Cayce’s
home… Because the doctors had experienced such telephone calls in the past,
and knew the good that could come from them, they’d agreed to go along with
whatever they were instructed to do.” (pg. 18)

This
quote helps to establish some sort of prestige for Cayce. It does so by
asserting his questionable credibility by namedropping in a way. We all
consider doctors intelligent and capable individuals. If a medical doctor is
willing to try what he is saying (and it works), then why wouldn’t the
average person do so?. It also lends one to believe that there is a use for
ESP in medicine and that it can be more reliable than medicine.

Loci
– Quantity

·Vast knowledge

·Remarkable collection of readings

“Many of the answers to these and
other questions may be found in the remarkable collection of psychic readings
given by an outstanding clairvoyant, Edgar Cayce …the scope of his psychic
ability and of the subjects he treated while in a self-imposed hypnotic sleep
are so vast that great portions of the knowledge they contain are still, as
yet untapped.” Pg. 10

Again
this is about claiming an argument’s truth based on the credibility or
prestige of the individual. This is done in this passage by having a premise
modifier there that insinuates that Cayce’s huge amounts of successful
readings and his vast array of knowledge should convince you that he knows
what he is talking about because his has a lot of experience and experience
is what matters most the the audience.

Values-abstract

·Awareness of one’s purpose

“Serious
study of the readings has brought me – through its complete involvement with matters
concerning the human body, the human mind, and the human spirit-to a new
awareness of man’s real purpose in the earth. Concentration on the vast scope,
the universal nature of the Cayce readings, dealing as they do with past,
present, and future, has broadened my respect for this most talented of all
psychics.” Pg. 223

By
claiming that Cayce’s ESP methodology could help explain man’s real purpose
on Earth, the author is appealing to the belief that there is some
otherworldy reason for everyone’s existencde. And this drive to discover that
reason is the motivation for what we do. If Cayce has already been successful
in figuring out a way to determine one’s purpose, he and his method should be
taken seriously.

Comparison
– Enthusiastic Present

“That
some of the methods of treatment seem clumsy by today’s standards should not
deter doctors of medicine, and doctors of psychology, from examining what
Cayce has to say. As long as there are the tragedies of multiple sclerosis,
arthritis, cancer, schizophrenia, drug addiction and other ills plaguing
mankind, does orthodox medicine have a right to close the door on the
possibility that Cayce was giving the true answers to these problems. Does
the psychiatrist have a right to refuse to consider that man may have lived
before, and that the reason he acts the way he does may be at least partially
due to past experiences of other lifetimes?

This
argument is kind of like a don’t knock it until you try it type of thing but
it is also kind of stating that the present is better than the past
especially since we have all of this proof of ESP working so why not just
believe it already. Doctors have failed at curing these illnesses so we
should be open to looking at alternative sources of information.